Chair
1936 (designed)
Artist/Maker | |
Place of origin |
Frank Lloyd Wright‘s furniture was always part of an integrated architectural conception that he referred to as ‘Organic Architecture’. ‘It is quite impossible’, he wrote, ‘to consider the building as one thing and its furnishings as another’. For the headquarters of an American manufacturer of cleaning products Wright designed a range of metal and wood desks and matching chairs of which this is one. Although first designed in heavy sheet aluminium, then in tubular aluminium, these proposals were abandoned in favour of cheaper tubular steel. Wright’s use of tubular steel was very different from that of European Modernists but was indebted to aluminium furniture designed by his contemporary, the American Warren MacArthur. At Johnson Wax, different coloured upholstery was used for different office departments.
Object details
Categories | |
Object type | |
Materials and techniques | Armrests: Maple with with a plastic laminate (similar to formica) on top of the maple substrate which has a wood-grain pattern.
Upholstery: wool fibre. Boucle effect (twisted yarn and raised pile). Top cover in good condition clean and unworn, probable not original. |
Brief description | Armchair designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for the S.C. Johnson Administration Building, 1936 |
Physical description | Painted steel with wood armrest and upholstered seat and back |
Dimensions |
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Gallery label |
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Production | Designed for the S.C. Johnson Administration Building, Racine, Wisconsin |
Summary | Frank Lloyd Wright‘s furniture was always part of an integrated architectural conception that he referred to as ‘Organic Architecture’. ‘It is quite impossible’, he wrote, ‘to consider the building as one thing and its furnishings as another’. For the headquarters of an American manufacturer of cleaning products Wright designed a range of metal and wood desks and matching chairs of which this is one. Although first designed in heavy sheet aluminium, then in tubular aluminium, these proposals were abandoned in favour of cheaper tubular steel. Wright’s use of tubular steel was very different from that of European Modernists but was indebted to aluminium furniture designed by his contemporary, the American Warren MacArthur. At Johnson Wax, different coloured upholstery was used for different office departments. |
Associated objects |
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Collection | |
Accession number | W.44-1981 |
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Record created | January 14, 2009 |
Record URL |
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